Page 74 of Bad Wolf's Nanny
“I’m not.”
“Youhaveto be wrong.”
Her voice was climbing now, her heartbeat thudding so loudly thathecould hear it. He could see the tremble start in her fingers, the way she suddenly clutched Sam to her as if Dane had threatened to take them both.
“I can’t be—” she broke off, shook her head again, and looked down at the floor like it might give her a different reality to stand on.
Dane took a slow step forward, “Lola. You’re not alone. Okay? Whatever happens, I’m here.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
She looked up at him, eyes wide and bright and filled with sheer disbelief, “Stopactinglike you can say things like that.”
“I’m not acting.”
“Youtoldme,” she snapped, the emotion finally cracking through, “that we weren’t anything. That you couldn’t do this. That it was too much. So what, now that my hormones have shifted slightly, I’m suddenly worth fighting for?”
He took another step forward, “It’s not about that. It’s—”
“Then whatisit?”
“You’re carrying my pup.”
“Don’t say that like it explains everything!”
She was flushed now, pacing a small, agitated loop with Sam in her arms, like she couldn’t stand still. Dane could see her hands tightening against the baby’s blanket, could hear the change in her breathing.
“I don’t even know if Iwantto be—” she began, then stopped herself, the words catching. “God, I haven’t even taken a test. I haven’t felt sick, I haven’t had time to think, and nowyoushow up, saying these things, acting like…”
Her voice cracked.
Dane moved toward her instinctively, but she stepped back, eyes flashing.
“Don’t.”
He stopped. Palms open. Trying not to spook her, even though every part of him was screaming to pull her into his arms.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said quietly.
“Well, you are.”
“Lola—”
“You can’t justclaimme, Dane. You don’t get to say ‘you’re mine’ and think that somehow erases all the ways you pushed me away.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it again.
She was right.
But reason and instinct didn’t always move in the same direction, and right now his instincts were deafening.
He could still smell it, the subtle shift in her. A flicker of life taking root. His life.Theirs.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she muttered, starting to turn toward the hallway.
He moved too fast.
